surgeworks

29 – Finale Part 3 | Table of Contents | 31 – The Answer 2

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Alternate Title: Please Hit Me As Hard As You Can

Alright, it’s time. Time for the Answer, which, while not included in P3P, is canon—so exploring it is necessary to understand the whole game’s legacy. Many, many thanks to themachinatorslab (Empyrea) for emulating this and playing through it so that I can do that, since I don’t have a copy or the hardware myself.

Upon booting up a new game, we’re warned that we should play through the entirety of “The Journey” before undertaking this, and also that the combat difficulty will be higher.

We’re shown the full moon, zooming out into wires and gears. Aigis’ voice says “This ordeal… it may be that we brought it on ourselves” and suddenly we see her fighting… Akihiko? And Ken? And there’s a weird person with a red mask here...

[The prelude cutscene on YouTube, since embedding it here was causing some problems.]

> Some time before the incident…

We see a phone ringing, and find Fuuka in her room, with Yukari on the other line. She asks if she’s ‘coming today’, and Yukari responds that she has cram school today, and she left a message saying as much on the message board. Fuuka murmurs a protest, and Yukari mentions she left “the stuff” at the dorm, and so shouldn’t need to be present, right? Fuuka reluctantly agrees, before asking if Yukari is okay with that. Yukari confirms she’s passing up whatever this is before she has to hang up, bidding Fuuka say hello to everyone for her.

We pan out to see Fuuka strolling over to a lounge chair with Junpei, Mitsuru, Ken, and Koromaru also present. Ken mentions Akihiko is at the gym and probably will be late. Junpei wonders what’s up with them, and says the dorm is closing down today, complaining that they should at least properly see off a place with so many memories attached. Koromaru whimpers. Mitsuru says it can’t be helped, and that those two are on a different wavelength.

Everyone’s going their own way and that’s a good thing, she says. Fuuka again reluctantly agrees. Mitsuru continues that she can’t blame them, and says that if she weren’t collecting, she might not have showed up either. Junpei finally says it outright: they’re turning in their guns. SEES is no more.

Junpei counts and asks how many there are supposed to be. Aigis walks in, and deposits more collected Evokers, claiming this to be the sum. Ken remarks on Aigis having possessed one, and Mitsuru clarifies that Aigis was keeping the protagonist’s Evoker (as we’re playing a different character here, “we” will be reserved for Aigis, while the exclusively male protagonist here will be referred to with “he”). This may warrant some explanation—if you haven’t played the vanilla version, Aigis never uses an Evoker in combat, and instead just generates her Persona automatically.

Fuuka is quiet, as is Ken, and Junpei asks them not to get “all gloomy again”, and says [he] wouldn’t have wanted to see them that way. Ken agrees that they all said their goodbyes, but says he still wonders why it happened. The doctors didn’t find anything wrong, he says, and the protagonist appears to have by all accounts just fallen asleep...and died. Fuuka reasons that it took all of his power to protect them, and Aigis says it’s useless to guess at the reasons, and says she’s certain he wouldn’t have blamed anyone.

Junpei, calling Aigis “Ai-chan”, agrees. He comments that he’s glad she’s still doing okay, mentioning that there was a time when the protagonist was all she could think about. Aigis hesitates and says she’s surprised, too, and guesses that maybe she’ll feel it all hit her when she’s by herself in the lab tomorrow. Fuuka, confused, asks if Aigis is planning on going to school from the lab everyday next semester. Aigis murmurs, leaving Mitsuru to explain that Aigis isn’t going back to school. Junpei is dismayed and asks why, although I’m not—she’s a robot. She has literally no reason to be in school.

Aigis says it was her decision and apologizes for not saying it sooner.

“I enjoy being with you all, but I need to find my own way of life.”

She says they can come visit her anytime, but the others are clearly still not thrilled with this outcome. Mitsuru bids that they think of it as a new beginning for Aigis before reminding them all of why they’re here, and it’s not to be sad.

It’s sushi time! Yukari and Akihiko might be missing out on the dinner she’s having at the dorm tonight. Ken’s excited, as is Junpei, who asks Aigis if she’ll join in. I don’t know why, as again—Aigis is a robot. I’m not sure she can even eat, nor would I know why if she could. But Aigis agrees to come.

We fade to black and then fade back in on the SEES members in the lounge, watching a television broadcast stating that Apathy Syndrome cases have all been clearing up, but the average person’s stress is still present. Junpei remarks that it’s late, and Mitsuru comments that midnight is almost here.

“It’s hard to believe we’ve spent the evening doing nothing.”

She says it reminds her of the good days, and Fuuka agrees, mentioning so many memories she feels in this lounge, such that she often finds herself there for no reason. Ken agrees, remarking that those memories are more painful than happy, and Junpei asks if everyone else isn’t feeling something weird.

“I’ll be walkin’ around, and people act like as long as they’re happy right now, nothing else matters. Those stupid stories that Strega spread around are still out there, y’know? It makes me think ‘is this what we almost died to protect’?”

Ken says he sounds like an old man saying youngsters don’t know how good they have it, and he bristles. Mitsuru says that’s not their concern; they prevented the Fall, but reforming society is outside their grasp.

Junpei goes ahead, only for the newscaster to announce it’s midnight, for some reason. Right after the weather. And, sure enough, something happens, but it’s not the Dark Hour. There’s a bang from somewhere nearby, making everyone jump.

Aigis points out the news channel, which repeats its prior broadcast, which is dated March 31^st. Aigis remarks that the 31^st was yesterday, and Junpei’s ready to blow it off. But Ken, taking his cell phone out, says its date matches what the newscaster said. When Mitsuru and Junpei are still not giving this the time of day, Fuuka pipes up about something feeling off. Junpei just wants to go to bed, and Aigis wants to return to her room, saying she needs to pack. The rest tell her goodnight, and she leaves.

Mitsuru gets out her own cell, saying she should probably call Yukari and Akihiko, and we fade out.

>An hour later, in Aigis’ room…

We see a bunch of machinery, and Aigis is reclining in some sort of chair in a pod.

“When I close my eyes… I remember the last moment I spent with him…”

I’m still mad about that. You robbed everyone else of their final moments with the protagonist.

She describes the day he fell asleep, and everyone’s fears and sorrow when it happened. She says she fell into a depression, and having a recurring dream, wherein she runs after him, calling for him, but can’t catch up to him.

“When he was alive, I promised to protect him, and I made that my reason for living. That promise is gone… unfulfilled.”

She describes her sadness suddenly leaving her one day, out of the blue. She stopped dreaming, and no longer required sleep. I wasn’t aware she required any in the first place, but go on.

Opening her eyes, she says she can’t sleep, and removes herself from the chair. She asks herself if she can really continue living like this, and suddenly something catches her attention: a blue butterfly

It lands on her outstretched hand, but it disappears when another loud crash rings out, drawing her attention. There’s a knock on the door from Fuuka, and Aigis invites her in. Fuuka rushes in and says that they need her, and when Aigis asks what’s up, wondering about some new enemy, and Fuuka says the lobby door opened up, and… well, anyway, as she says, Aigis is needed in the lounge.

They make their way down, and in her introspection, Aigis says that the day her dreams stopped must have been when the “incident” (i.e., this scenario, which she’s been describing from the future tense) began.

In the lounge, where confrontational music is playing. A stranger is standing above a large metal hatch that just opened in the dorm. She wears some kind of gold helmet with gold and red metal accents attached to her waits and arms. Junpei, Ken and Mitsuru are injured, and Mitsuru tells Aigis to be careful, as “it” doesn’t seem human.

The stranger turns towards Aigis, who says this obviously isn’t a shadow. She says this person is the “same model” as herself, marking her as another anti-shadow robot. The masked robot, who for some reason has a bust built onto her chest plate, speaks in a female voice, recognizing Aigis’ name.

Aigis is confused, and Fuuka chimes in from her navigational role. Mitsuru confirms they’re all okay for now, and asks her to support Aigis. Aigis demands to know who this machine person is and why they’ve attacked, and the latter identifies herself as “Metis”, with her mission being to protect Aigis. In her muffled voice, Metis openly intends to eliminate the other SEES members, who she claims are a threat. Aigis tells her to fuck off, in politer words, initiating a fight.

Metis wields an odd bludgeoning tool, and orders Aigis to stand aside. We control Aigis and her Persona Athena, only for Metis to summon her own Persona, Psyche. Metis reaffirms that she won’t hurt Aigis if she stands down, but the battle continues, and she swings on us with the weird tool. Between the opening Swift Strike and the Kill Rush, Metis is already two-thirds dead, and feels it. She goes for another strike, but we win.

After getting a crap ton of EXP, Aigis levels up...to 25? And we see that her attributes, Academics/Charm/Courage, are at “Needs Work”, “Kindhearted”, and “Fearless”.

> You are now able to create Personas up to level 25

A cutscene plays, and Metis’ odd metal attachments burst into a swarm of red butterflies. She seems to have activated her own Orgia mode, and amped herself up. Batting Aigis aside, Metis attacks Ken, and a damaged Aigis watches Metis grab Ken with intent to kill. In Aigis’ mind, we see a vision of the protagonist, before she stands back up, Athena manifesting and charging, before transforming into...Orpheus?

Metis is caught off guard, as Mitsuru remarks on Aigis gaining the wild card. Orpheus sends out some kind of pulse that brings Metis to her knees causing her mask to lift, displaying red eyes.

[The cutscene on YouTube, since embedding it here was causing some problems.]

The cutscene ends.

> Aigis has awakened to a new power…
> Athena has metamorphosed into Orpheus!

We zoom into the Velvet Room in the same manner as before. Elizabeth and Igor are positioned across the table from Aigis, who is confused. Igor gives his greetings.

“Ah… A very rare guest indeed…”

Shut up. We don’t need to hear about how Aigis is just the specialest ever.

He wonders if she’s human, or a “simulacrum”. Igor properly introduces himself and Elizabeth before giving roughly the same explanation as before, including the business with a “contract”, though Aigis hasn’t signed one that we see. Igor handwaves it as coming with the wild card territory and mentions the protagonist (who I will henceforth refer to as Minato) was a guest here. Igor says that Minato reached the “answer to life”, an answer Aigis can now attain with the wild card power.

Aigis asks the obvious question: by “reach the answer to life”, does that mean she’s gonna kick the bucket?

DEATH IS INEVITABLE: 87

“Strength of heart, when united, is barred by no door…” is Igor’s answer.

Aigis is silent, and Igor sends her on her way and towards her oncoming journey. Aigis gets a strange feeling, and a clock flashes across the screen. She is provided with a Velvet Room key, and the rest follows as before.

> “I once made a choice to live…”
> “So much has happened to me since that decision.”
> “If this power is a sign that I’m drawing closer to life…”
> “Does it mean the answer at the end of the journey is… death?”

DEATH IS INEVITABLE: 88

> “I was surprised at the time, to discover how little the possibility bothered me…”

Great, more suicidal people.

We fade in to everyone sitting in the lounge, Yukari present this time. Everyone is happy she’s awake from her big Orpheus Nap. Yukari complains that this is all she came for, and Aigis apologizes.

Aigis questions her new get-up, which includes a mask and some new metal bits attached to her chest plate. Mitsuru says she added some new equipment while fixing her, and says they found strange things “under the floor”. SEES were working on figuring things out while she was out, and Fuuka chimes in that Metis said that these upgrades should be added in order to protect her. Metis turns out to be in the room, guarded by Akihiko and Ken.

Akihiko gives his greetings, commenting that Metis is now cooperative...and restrained. Metis breathes deeply, and Ken reiterates that they can better defend themselves now that they have their Evokers, albeit Junpei is pissed that she wrecked the dorm when it’s his turn to clean. Metis, after a bit of silence, wakes up, revealing herself to have been sleeping, and opens her mask. Junpei taunts her need for sleep, and Metis confirms she’s suffering burnout after using Orgia Mode.

Aigis steps forward, questioning, and Metis re-affirms that her reason for being here is to protect her, and protests her restraints. Aigis says she better start giving some explanations. Metis hesitates, before saying she thought it was because Aigis wouldn’t like her. Aigis contemplates before recommending they release her, citing that even if they can’t trust her, she likely isn’t out to hurt them anymore, and even if she was, chains likely aren’t going to make a difference.

Metis breaks her manacles and stands up, and Aigis again demands to know who Metis is and why she is here. Metis properly introduces herself, reiterating that she’s an anti-shadow weapon of Aigis’ make and model, and her purpose is to “save” her from “this hopeless situation”. Naturally, this is a bit confusing. Aigis asks if anything happened while she was out, and how long she was out for. Metis answers that it’s been a day and a half. But, it’s still March 31^st outside. This trend will continue indefinitely.

Metis asks if Aigis didn’t feel the moment when time “skipped”. Akihiko also mentions that they’re unable to leave the dorm.

“The Abyss of Time below us is causing a space-time distortion.”

Again, this is a statement that draws questions. Mitsuru offers to show Aigis what’s going on up close. Following Metis, the group goes down into the bunker door that appeared in the lounge, and finds something very similar to the Vision Quest Hall that we explored from the door in Tartarus. Only one door is present here, though, and Metis says this is the Abyss of Time, and it goes much further. As Metis explains, the Abyss of Time was small at first, but all of a sudden, it got a lot bigger and connected to the dorm. It’s obviously not man-made, probably similar to Tartarus. Junpei asks if that sort of problem isn’t supposed to be over with by now, and Metis says the flow of time here is not normal and is bleeding into the dorm, and that if they want to leave, they need to destroy the Abyss of Time.

Metis clarifies that her own attempt to do so was via eliminating SEES, which obviously didn’t pan out. Since they were able to perceive time “skipping”, she reasoned that they had something to do with it. She recommends entering the Abyss if they’re going to find another way.

Yukari protests reforming SEES and doing all of the secret super power stuff again. Junpei disdains the idea of just obeying Metis’ idea blindly, but no one has any other ideas. If they let things go on as they are, they’re going to die for the simple fact that they’ll run out of food to eat. Akihiko questions Metis’ reasons for tasking herself with Aigis’ protection, and this sets her off, as she claims to care about Aigis, referring to her as her only sister. Mitsuru reiterates the original story, that Aigis is the last anti-shadow weapon. She and Akihiko both take issue with Metis’ story, and she gets shifty.

There’s no time to waste on this kind of talk, she says, and bids the others follow her with quite the bitter admonitions. Aigis checks her, saying that they can take her directions and run with them, she doesn’t have to be along for the ride if her attitude’s going to suck. This immediately gets Metis to shut up and play nice.

It should be mentioned that Junpei’s own attitude here is more hostile than was seen from him in the main Journey. I’m fine with that, I’ll take this reasonably sensible suspicion over him making moon eyes at Metis because she’s pretty, but jeez.

Metis, distressed at the idea of being left all alone, apologizes and begs not to be, and this moves Aigis. Mitsuru addresses the team and charges Aigis with the responsibility of team leader, since she’s got the Wild Card now, and all. Therefore, she chooses to defer to her.

Yukari questions Aigis having Minato’s power. Yeah, we’re just gonna lampshade that, I guess. Aigis doesn’t know much, herself, only that the power manifested when she was afraid she’d lose someone. Metis, who also isn’t in the know, just recommends asking the other person who had that same power, and this makes everyone uncomfortable as they remember that that other person is now dead.

DEATH IS INEVITABLE: 89

Mitsuru recommends they change into something more appropriate for monster slaying and get their gear. Everyone starts to leave, and Aigis is left alone with Metis, who asks to be allowed to (continue to) call her ‘sister’. Aigis acquiesces, to her great joy.

> The mysterious space that’s appeared… The Abyss of Time.
> Until you find the reason for its presence, you will be unable to leave the dorm.
> You must begin investigating at once…

We’re then dropped off in the lounge, ready to take a party into the depths, just like in the main game. Mitsuru wants to look for documents that might reveal something, like the ones she apparently found while Aigis was out, and will not be available. She also designates another team towards looking around to see if the Abyss connects to any other places in the dorm, in case they can make a supply route. Junpei recommends Koromaru and himself. Everyone else is still available for party battle.

Before we leave for battle, however, we go visit Minato’s room. The door won’t open. Which is really creepy, because it just reminded me that Aigis used to creep into his room at night. Gross.

Aigis I’m Stuck With You: 61

Trying to go out onto the roof confirms that we’re trapped inside. We form a party consisting of Yukari, Metis, and Akihiko, and Fuuka confirms that Aigis can’t use Orgia mode anymore.

On entering the Abyss of Time, the first thing we see is a shadow of Minato entering a door. There’s more of them now, and we see each door named after a floor of Hell in Dante Alighieri’s The Inferno, albeit Empyrean actually comes from The Paradisio. Malebolge is the first one.

The rooms inside look like the dorm’s hallways, but with an odd red filter and shadows lurking around. The music is a solemn piano and organ piece. We check our levels, and everyone’s at about level 25, with Metis wielding bludgeoning tools and the Persona Psyche, of the Hierophant Arcana. Psyche was the lover of Eros, given much grief by his mother Aphrodite. She starts with Garula, Dekaja, Fatal End, and has Marin Karin as her next move, and has no weaknesses nor resistances. So, a balanced Persona, or at least an attempt at one. However, she’s not the only one with a “next move” – as I mentioned, everyone’s been reset to about level 20-ish.

Yes. The most unfortunate aspect of this way too long playable epilogue is that it’s all dungeon crawling, meaning you get to re-do all of the grinding and grinding and grinding, over and over again, to level up skills. Which don’t change, by the way.

I’m supremely pissed about this. They didn’t just rehash the content, they stripped away parts and gave you the exact same thing but less fun. See, you could’ve made this interesting. You could’ve given party members new skills to learn to balance out their weak areas, which in some few are quite hamstringing. Or even if you wanted to keep the exact same skillset, just allowing the player the choice of what stays and what goes when adding new skills could’ve made for some great new variety, as it would’ve enabled some challenge junkie-type players to do minimal-skill runs. But no, nothing new, and everything that sucked still sucks.

Bad Game Design: 106

Three points. One for the reset, two for the missed opportunities.

This is FES, an extension of the original game, so you can’t control your party members here and will have to work around that. We gain Ares, Empusa, and Rakshasa during our first run. While enemies aren’t yet dramatically hard, battle definitely lacks the grace period of the main game.

We come across a gold shadow, only for it to vanish, and descend deeper into the basement floors of Malebolge. We run low on SP by the time we hit the 7^th floor—only Metis hasn’t run dry, because she seems to favor physical attacking unless an enemy’s weakness has been scanned. On the 8^th floor, we find our first miniboss, three Visceral Mayas and an Immortal Gigas. They’re weak to fire and wind, respectively. They do have Dodge Fire and Dodge Wind to cover this, but otherwise, they’re not much trouble, just tedious. The Gigas does all the damage, while the Mayas are mere annoyances, but they all have a huge amount of health and take negligible damage, so it’s an endurance fight.

One thing I’ve noticed here that I was surprised to remember was that if you attack an enemy that’s been downed, they get back up. What’s up with that? No, seriously, that makes no sense, I’m so glad they fixed that in later releases.

Bad Game Design: 107

For a minute, it looks like we’ll lose due to not having enough SP to outlast the shadows, but we get them in the end. For our trouble, we gain 3400 exp, a steel right arm for Aigis or Metis, and about 3,000 yen. Orpheus and Fuuka also level up, Orpheus gaining Agilao and Fuuka gaining Support Scan. The door out leads back into the Desert of Doors. We return to the dorm to recover our health and SP.

We also visit the Velvet Room, where we’re informed of 170 possible Personas for us. We fuse Power and then leave. We then return to Malebolge Floor 8 and go further, finding ourselves in halls that more closely resemble Tartarus, albeit more church-like and with a blue filter.

We die on our first shadow encounter. Shit.

Altogether, the hard mode setting is showing. Enemies have a lot of health and we often miss our attacks.

(This took a couple streaming sessions, and at this point, while hooking up my mic, the Reaper entered the area).

Everybody levels up, and we gain the Pleiades bow for Yukari and some Max Safety Shoes. Some Vicious Ravens attack us on the 12^th floor of Malebolge and get a severe enough drop that we have to flee, but other than that things go okay. We unfortunately miss a gold shadow.

Again, the only one who isn’t running low on SP is Metis, whose go-to always seems to be Fatal End. We gain the Personas Narcissus and Titan on the way down, and after the 14^th floor of Malebolge, we come across a new place, a golden, palatial area with torches burning on large stands and intricate designs along the floorways. I say “floorways” because it’s open to the air, and very reminiscent of M.C. Escher’s “Relativity” painting.

Fuuka chimes in to ask us what that black shadow we keep seeing is, and we then approach the only door for a scene.

Soft piano music starts up as we see the group approach the door. Metis comments that this is the first “goal” they’ve reached. Akihiko is daunted by the size of the place, and Metis reaffirms that we’ll probably be at this a while, and the source of the problem should be at the deepest level. Mitsuru comments that it’s like Tartarus all over again.

You don’t say, Mitsuru?

Fuuka and Junpei comment on the similarities, including the wandering shadows. Junpei in particular asks what the shadows are doing here, since the Lost are all better now. No one has the answer. Mitsuru asks what’s wrong, referring to Yukari, who hesitates. She admits that she’s a bit resentful to once again be on a journey like this again after she resolved to look forward at the end of the main game.

Well, Atlus wanted some more Aigis time, Yukari. Suck it up.

Metis reiterates that time doesn’t flow normally here, and says there’ll be opportunities to revisit their pasts here. Yukari inquires, and Metis walks forward, towards the door, and opens it. A flash of light later, and we’re back in a new place… Paulownia Mall.

We’re obviously in a flashback sequence. Koromaru immediately wanders off, before coming back, and Junpei says it feels hot. Officer Kurosawa (the weapon salesman) walks up, and says they should be in school. Yukari covers that it’s spring break, but is it? Nope, it’s June, it would seem. Besides that, Kurosawa’s suspicious of the two girls “in costume” (Aigis and Metis) and Yukari fumbles. Thankfully, Kurosawa elects not to care. Then he walks off.

No, seriously, that’s a bit convenient. Why have him walk up and accost SEES if he isn’t going to change the scene in any way?

Mitsuru says all the dates visible nearby display 2009, which would mean it’s June of the previous year. The others finally realize they’ve opened the diary, so to speak. Meanwhile, Metis is fascinated by the fountain, but is suspicious in her denial when Aigis asks her if something is interesting about this place. It’s obvious she knows what everything is, but has never actually been exposed to a world like this before—rather like Elizabeth and Theodore. Aigis simply finds kinship in that they both like to stare at the fountains, and this makes Metis happy.

Aigis wants to know where they are. Metis sighs and spells out the things I just said. They’re in the past, and will be able to access different dates in the past by going through the doors in the Abyss of Time, specifically dates and times from their memories, reflecting their inner feelings.

Luckily, this one happens to be a mall, so they can buy supplies to improve their combat performance and food to stave off starvation.

> “…So it was that we learned why that place was named the Abyss of Time”.

Hello again, narrating Aigis. Nice to see you.

> “A place where you can revisit days gone by…”
> “…But thinking back on it, it wasn’t only the surprising nature of the place that surprised us…”
> “It may be that we all unconsciously saw a kind of salvation.”

There’s a remix of the mall theme playing here, and we don’t buy much, since the prices are higher than expectations for Cyberpunk 2077. Then we go back into the Abyss, triggering a scene.

Aigis is spat out back in the dorm, sans any detour through the Desert of Doors, forming a shortcut. When we’re handed control, Junpei and Koromaru are then available for party battle. We save, and elect to take Metis, Yukari, and Akihiko back into our party. We enter the Velvet Room, and then fuse Sati, who will be valuable as she has the Media healing spell.

The fact that Personas can’t benefit from Social Link points and are left only with what you can slap on there via component Personas is really bugging me. A really noticeable part of the stripped-down gameplay.

Then it’s on to Cocytus. In contrast to what the name might imply, it’s very...purple? The designs are pointed and twisted, and a little funky? It feels disco-ish for some reason. It also has a vaguely God Hand-ish demonic feel. It looks like the Answer’s equivalent to Arqa, really.

We gain the Albireo gun for Aigis from our first card shuffle. In the next fight, our whole party gets Charmed, which results in a TPK. I’m so giving this another point for the new, Aigis-tailored death poem given for dying in battle:

DEATH IS INEVITABLE: 90

On our next run through, our party levels up again, and we regain Empusa (for a fusion component) and find a grenade launcher for Aigis. Combat is starting to get more challenging, with some of the dice enemies able to use Makarakarn. But it’s not them that kills us (again) with a Mudo skill.

Well, third try’s the charm. The first enemy we encounter this time is a Wealth Hand. It escapes.

We level up to 29, then go back and fuse Genbu and save. Predictably, as soon as she gains it, Metis starts using Marin Karin nonstop and nobody is happy about it. We also gain Lamia and Zouchouten from Shuffle Time. Then we go back and fuse Mithra and Shisaa.

When we next go in, we get a Persona card for a Persona we can’t wield yet. We also see the Minato shadow on floor eight, which is a free floor. He continues fleeing down to lower floors, and we lose him on floor nine, which has a guardian shadow, the Brilliant Cyclops. It kills Akihiko pretty quickly with its ice skills, and while it looks like we’ll pull through, it achieves a TPK.

With this in mind, we swap out Akihiko for Koromaru, who’s immune to the boss summon’s fire attacks and fast enough to dodge the boss’s ice attacks. During the next trek, we get a Metal Protector, Pearlite Legs, an Orgibileus, and High Pixie, and Aigis levels up to 31. We also get a Cross Spear for Ken.

On our second try against the Brilliant Cyclops, we make it until it’s a sliver of health away from death, and then it just kills Aigis out of nowhere. That’s rude as hell.

We explore options on this second loss. This was when I was reminded that there is no Persona Compendium in this part of the game.

That’s…alright, that goes beyond ‘Hard Mode’ and into utter bullshit. There aren’t enough opportunities to gain fodder Personas to fuse to make that forgivable. Between that and the lack of ability to upgrade them via Social Links…

Bad Game Design: 108

On a third try after some major grinding, we finally kill the bastard. We get two Bead Chains and two Homunculi for the trouble.

The 10^th floor of Cocytus packs some stronger enemies, but they’re nothing after the Cyclops. By now, Metis has unfortunately become the new Mitsuru, spamming that Marin fucking Karin spell for no reason. Through combat, we gain the Persona Orthrus. Fuuka regains her Third Eye skill. The 15^th floor presents another plaza where we can return to the mall and the dorm through the special door.

But when we do, we’re treated to a flashback from Ken Amada. Since I don’t feel like exhaustively recapping these, here’s the gist of it: Ken is sitting in an office of a police station, trying to process the death of his mom. An officer asks for a witness statement, and Ken tries to tell him about Shinjiro and the Persona he accidentally unleashed, but the officer obviously doesn’t believe him and gives him the car crash story.

With a dosage of backstory, Persona 3 can now pretend its characters are developed, so voila, get to fanficcing or whatever. At any rate, this introduces, or at least reinforces the problems with the Ken drama from earlier in the game—remember how I said that Shinjiro, at this time, would probably be difficult to take for a cold-blooded murderer? We hear Ken describe him as a teenager holding his head and yelling. If I saw someone holding their head and yelling, I’d probably think they needed help, not the electric chair. Not giving it more points, but yeah.

Said incident turns out to have been the day he awakened his Persona and began experiencing the Dark Hour. We’ll get a few more flashbacks to the days that led to the team’s awakenings, but none of it is new information (okay, Junpei’s technically was, since it offers the drunk dad abuse bit P3P would expand on later), but overall they don’t change much of anything. They just serve as apparent reminders of the drive the characters used to have. Also, Shinjiro, Koromaru, and Fuuka don’t get one because fuck you.

Mitsuru is available in our party once again once this bit is over, and we swap Yukari out for her. At the Velvet Room, we fuse Mothman. Then we head out.

Down in Caina, the Jotun of Power enemy proves to be alarmingly tough for a single shadow, killing two party members with a charged Swift Strike. Since we don’t have Yukari or any revive items, we’re forced to leave Metis and Koromaru where they dropped. We return to the Velvet Room and fuse Incubus, then go buy some supplies.

We gain Kusi Mitama and Jikokuten on our next journey in, before some Dancer enemies kill us. Welp.

We take things a little more carefully next try, returning to the Velvet Room to fuse Ganga. On our second trip down, we make it to the seventh floor, where there’s a guardian fight—two El Dorado Beasts and a Death Castle. The lions are weak to ice, meaning they’ll be toast before too long, but the Castle is a bit different. It’s a supportive enemy that can heal, which is bad. Not that bad, though—the Castle has a huge amount of health and little defense, meaning that we can shave off a lot of health with each hit, while its Mediaramas can only restore a little bit of said health. It still takes longer than it really needs to, though.

After that’s done, we go back to the dorm and save, then fuse Orobas, then go back in and—get killed by some tank enemies. *Sigh*

We gain Oumitsunu and King Frost on our next run in, while Koromaru continues his practice of advancing faster than peer party members and generally being more useful. The enemies are starting to come in more aggressive (read: Chariot Arcana) flavors, and start being a little trickier to handle. On the 13^th floor, we find the fleeing Minato shadow again, and at this point it’s starting to become overbearing. We’re not gonna forget he exists if he doesn’t show up every seven floors of a very long trek.

We take a return trip to the dorm to save, then get back into the action. Floor 14 of Caina offers another set of miniboss shadows, which Fuuka now believes the Minato shadow to be summoning—a Harem Dancer and two Merciless Mayas.

The Mayas like to cast Makarakarn to deter magic attacks, but Koromaru’s Maragion doesn’t hurt him as he’s still immune to fire. Generally, all three shadows like fire attacks and status effects. They wreck our shit, largely because they can do more damage than we can heal off.

We try again, swapping out our party and replacing Mitsuru and Koromaru for Yukari and Akihiko (at which point I chanted at the screen “Junpei and Koro, come on!”). We also fuse Virtue before going back in for another plunge, but we don’t even get to the bosses this time before three Wild Drives kill half the party and force a retreat. Thus, we go restock and recuperate. On our next run in, leveling Akihiko and Yukari goes well. We re-gain Jikokuten after using him for a fusion, and also gain Hua Po, which is helpful as we next fuse Black Frost.

Our first enemy encounter uses Last Resort and wipes half the party. Shit.

After a lot more grinding, we take the new party on against the Dancer and the Mayas. They wipe the floor with us again.

We get a little further on the next try, and the battle goes on long enough that I notice something rather peculiar that adds to this game’s already high number of ‘fake difficulty’ moments: every action counts as a turn. This means that drain effects like poison are devastating, because if you get a one more, you take a “turn” of damage for each follow-up action. Getting struck by an enemy or healed by an ally counts as a turn in this vein, too. It also never wears off, which sucks if you don’t have access to Posumudi—which is a rare skill, and your party members won’t have it.

Bad Game Design: 109

After this latest disappointment, we start taking party members individually to level them faster. It’s tedious.

On the next try, the Dancer charms Aigis. She kills Yukari. The rest is predictable. So yes, this miniboss in particular can go fuck itself. We do yet more leveling until Metis gains Power Charge, this helping out a lot on the final try along with a shit ton of items to cheese the fight with. On one last try, it finally takes. We get two attack mirrors and a precious egg for its defeat.

After Caina’s 19^th floor comes another dead end plaza. There’s another flashback here, this time for Akihiko, and in which the teens fangirling for Akihiko is a little overplayed. The gist of it is that Akihiko as a middle schooler is set upon by a faculty member from a rival school that is offering him a scholarship for his great match, but Akihiko blows him off. Middle-schooler Mitsuru walks up, commenting on the scene after he leaves, and Akihiko, a little too late, walks over to a pillar to adopt a cool-guy-that-doesn’t-care pose. Mitsuru introduces herself and uses his tough guy I-don’t-give-a-shit-except-for-getting-stronger attitude to tempt him into joining and forming SEES so that he can fight.

Reminiscences are had, and Metis expresses awe at having been exposed to a school. Aigis reiterates that she doesn’t intend to go back to school. Everyone has their “oh, maybe Metis is cool actually” moment.

And although I realize this is rather sudden, but we’re stopping. We’re about halfway through, if not the Answer, then at least my recap of it. We’ll pick up next time, wherein my patience with this drek hits an all-time low.

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